


In Limbo

by penumbra (perihadion)



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-05
Updated: 2010-07-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22512844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perihadion/pseuds/penumbra
Summary: An exploration of Britta's relationship with Radiohead, the band she "dropped out of school for".
Relationships: Britta Perry & Radiohead (band)
Kudos: 1





	In Limbo

**I.**  
**Airbag**

The first time Britta heard of Radiohead was thanks to the mix tape of a friend with somewhat questionable taste in music back in 1994: sandwiched between "(Everything I Do) I Do it For You" by Bryan Adams and Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" was "Creep", a whiney, grungey affair which sounded just a touch too much like "The Air That I Breathe" by the Hollies. She had thrown the tape in the trash and for years steadfastly refused to listen to Radiohead at all.

It was almost four years before she really 'discovered' them. For a few weeks she had been seeing a guy named Luke: tall, dark, and much older than she was; in fact, she had been sleeping with him; in fact, really she had been in love with him — deeply, passionately in love with him in the way that only a sixteen year-old idealist could really love an older man who said he was trying to save the world. He broke her heart, of course (of course); and while Britta was standing there half-naked in his apartment with shaking hands and tear-stained cheeks, caught between the girl who would believe anything a man with big dark eyes told her about the world and the hardened woman who wouldn't allow herself to be taken in again, something took hold of her, really gripped her inside, and she was determined to take something from him like he had taken something from her.

It happened that the easiest thing to slip into her bag as she was dressing herself was Radiohead's _OK Computer_ , just lying there on the end table. She took it out as she was on the bus and turned it over, reflecting on what an unfair trade it seemed: he had taken her love, and her life, and her self-esteem, and she had got a terrible CD by a third-rate English rock band who sounded just a touch too much like the Hollies. 

Britta had a lot of reasons to be prejudiced against Radiohead, right up until the moment that she put that CD on.

She forgot them all within the first thirty seconds of "Airbag".

By the end of the song, she was already crying.

_in an interstellar burst, I am back to save the universe_

**II.**  
**How to Disappear Completely**

By the time Britta first had an opportunity to see Radiohead live, she had already dropped out of High School; in fact, by that time she had already done a lot of things and more or less settled in New York. 22 years old, she worked a semi-regular bar job to pay the rent — and, by hook, crook, and the careful batting of eyelashes, she had managed to score herself some Radiohead tickets.

"I haven't been able to see them yet," she told her friend Leah; "you know, what with all the travelling I've been doing. But this is it. This is my time — and you know what? It couldn't come at a better time. I don't need to be with Josh to have a good time, and I don't need a group of anarchists to define me. You know?" Leah didn't know, but that was all right: Britta was going to see Radiohead; in fact, Britta was going to get in line at 9 o'clock in the morning and see Radiohead from the front row.

Except that Britta wasn't going to see Radiohead at all.

"Why am I on the schedule for Thursday evening?" she asked her boss John. "I told you I didn't want to work Thursday; I told you I needed Thursday off."

"I couldn't give you Thursday off without making you work Tuesday," he said, "and I assumed since Tuesday is your birthday —"

"No," she said. "No, I want to work Tuesday. It's Thursday I want off. I'm going to see Radiohead. Change it."

"I can't change it," he said. "Leah is taking a holiday on that day. You have to work Thursday. You can see Radiohead another time."

"You don't understand," she said grabbing her head in desperation. "This is my favourite band. I got kicked out of a group of anarchists because my taste in music was too 'mainstream'. I have waited _six years_ to see them. I can't work Thursday. I have to have Thursday off."

"Britta," he said, with a touch of impatience, "you either work Thursday or you don't work here at all. It's up to you. But I can't change the schedule. All right? I'm sorry, but that's how it is."

It took two days for Britta to decide that she could not afford to quit her job. Instead, she curled up with _Kid A_ on her birthday, and cried surreptitiously behind the bar while Radiohead played Madison Square Garden.

_I'm not here, this isn't happening_

**III.**  
**All I Need**

Britta was 26 before she thought seriously about picking up where she had left off academically. Grizzly Bear had written a song called "Colorado" and she had moved there in 2007. It was an evening in late summer and she was tracing circles on the table as she sat alone in a bar, waiting for a guy she was starting to suspect might never turn up. She ran her fingers around her glass and then put her chin in her hand.

Looking up, suddenly, she caught sight of a man across the room who looked a lot like — no, it couldn't be — Thom Yorke. Except then he looked in her direction, and somehow it was truly him.

She almost got up to go over to him but halfway between her seat and standing she thought, _to say what?_ — that she almost saw him live a couple of times but never quite managed it? — that she used to vandalise billboards and thought that would make a difference to the world? — that she was a 27 year-old High School drop-out with no job, no money, and no real place to live? — that she had nothing better to do with her life now than to sit in bars alone, waiting for men who would never come? Suddenly nothing she had ever done seemed remotely impressive; suddenly she couldn't conceive of Thom Yorke ever wanting to talk to her at all.

She sat down again, slowly, and didn't look at him again. And her date never came.

She started looking into getting her GED the next day.

_I'm the next act waiting in the wings_


End file.
